The Columbia University endowment returned 5.5% in 2020. (Photo: Bloomberg)
Seven of eight Ivy League endowments underperformed a 60–40 portfolio of U.S. domestic stock and bonds in fiscal 2020, ended June 30, according to research from MPI.
The exception was Brown, which returned 12.1%. This compared with the Ivy average return of 6.3% and the 8.8% return for the 60–40 quarterly rebalanced portfolio of the S&P 500 Index and the Bloomberg Barclays US Aggregate Bond Index.
Here's a look at the Ivy endowments' performance for fiscal 2019 and 2020:
- Harvard: 2019 – 6.5%; 2020 – 7.3%
- Yale: 2019 – 5.7%; 2020 – 6.8%
- Princeton: 2019 – 6.2%; 2020 – 5.6%
- Dartmouth: 2019 – 7.5%; 2020 – 7.6%
- UPenn: 2019 – 6.5%; 2020 – 3.4%
- Columbia: 2019 – 3.8%; 2020 – 5.5%
- Cornell: 2019 – 5.3%; 2020 – 1.9%
- Brown: 2019 – 12.4%; 2020 – 12.1%
The research showed that Ivy endowment results were fairly consistent during the past two fiscal years with the exception of Penn and Cornell, both of whose performance dropped significantly year over year.
MPI noted that domestic equities, bonds, private equity and hedge funds, all of which dominate Ivy portfolios, were similarly consistent over the past two years.
At the same time, real estate, commodities and foreign developed and emerging market equities experienced a significant drop in performance from FY2019, which may have echoed in the lower performing Ivy portfolios.
